Wedding Party Collection: Always The Bachelor: Best Man's Conquest / One Night with the Best Man / The Bridesmaid's Best Man

Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

The Bridesmaid’s Best Man (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

Best Man’s Conquest (#u95393413-86bf-5e14-994b-59da45a2c162)

Michelle Celmer

USA TODAY bestselling author MICHELLE CELMER has written more than twenty-five books for Mills & Boon. You can usually find her in her office with her laptop, loving the fact that she gets to work in her pyjamas. Write her at P.O. BOX 300, Clawson, MI 48017, USA visit her website at www.michellecelmer.com (http://www.michellecelmer.com) or find her on Facebook at Michelle Celmer Author.

I dedicate this work to my future Great Niece or Nephew, who will make his or her appearance at roughly the same time as this book. You have five brothers, so naturally your mommy is hoping for a girl. Try to work on that okay?

One (#u95393413-86bf-5e14-994b-59da45a2c162)

Is your ex hanging around and making noise like he wants to reconcile? Does he think he can sweet-talk his way back into your life? Don’t fall for it! Repeat after me: men don’t change.

—excerpt from The Modern Woman’s Guide to Divorce (And the Joy of Staying Single)

Ivy Madison was not a violent person, but as the “surprise” man she’d been hearing about for the past three months—the one who looked disturbingly similar to her gazillionaire ex-husband—unfolded his long, lean body from the backseat of the limo, she quietly began plotting her cousin Deidre’s murder.

No, it couldn’t possibly be him.

Blake, Deidre’s fiancé, was supposed to be off picking up the best man from the airport. There was no way that the surprise Deidre had repeatedly enticed her with, the mystery best man Ivy was just going to love, was Dillon Marshal! Never in a million years would Deidre expect Ivy to stand up in a wedding, much less spend the week before the ceremony in the Mexican villa, with the biggest mistake who had ever walked in, then walked back out of, her life.

Would she?

May be the surprise was that the best man only looked like Dillon. Yeah, that was probably it. They would have a good laugh, then Ivy could relax and enjoy the first real vacation since the release of her book.

It was just one of those weird, quirky coincidences.

The man who couldn’t possibly be her ex slipped off his Ray-Bans, revealing a familiar pair of heavy-lidded, come-hither, steel-blue bedroom eyes. Eyes that had been known to melt her with a mere glance, reduce her knees to mashed potatoes and her head to scrambled eggs.

Oh shi—

A blast of emotions tore through her insides with the velocity of a tropical storm, misfiring the synapses in her brain and tangling her intestines into knots.

She turned from the front window and looked to her cousin for an explanation. For an assurance that there was no way the man standing in the driveway was who he looked like.

Deidre flashed her a look seeped in guilt and offered a weak, “Surprise.”

Oh, no.

Ivy’s heart slid down from her chest, weaved around her internal organs and settled just north of her ovaries.

Her knees felt as if they might give out, and the bagel she’d had for breakfast was in danger of making a repeat performance all over the southwestern-theme rug. This could not be happening. There was a damned good reason she’d spent the last decade avoiding Dillon.

Feeling woozy, she lowered herself onto the couch. She glanced out the window and saw that men were at the back of the limo now, collecting Dillon’s luggage. Soon they would be coming inside.

Her stomach launched into an Olympic-caliber backflip with a triple twist.

Deidre sat down on the opposite end of the couch, far enough away to hopefully avoid any flying fists. “I know you probably want to kill me right now, but I can explain.”

Oh, yeah, she definitely had to die. And it would be slow and painful. Stung to death by African bees, or drained by a million leeches. “Deidre, what did you do?”

“I have a very good explanation.”

There was no good explanation. And there was only one thing Ivy could do. She needed to grab her things, slip out the back, and catch the next flight back to Texas.

She made a mental list of her belongings and tried to estimate how long it would take to shove them back into her bag.

Oh, to hell with her clothes. She had plenty more back home. All she really needed was her laptop and purse. She could grab them both and be out the back door in two minutes. Dillon would never be the wiser. Unless…

Oh, no, she wouldn’t have. “This was a surprise for him, too, right?”

Deidre clamped her bottom lip between her teeth, eyes pinned in her lap, and Ivy felt the bagel creeping farther up her throat.

“Deidre, honey, tell me he doesn’t know I’m here.”

The color leached from her cheeks.

“Deidre?”

“He knows.”